Rebels attack South Sudan's Jonglei state

Clashes erupted in South Sudan's Jonglei and Unity states on Friday following an attack on the two oil-rich states by rebels loyal to sacked vice president Riek Machar, an army spokesman has said. "This morning at around 6:45am, rebel forces attacked our position in Ayod County [in Jonglei]," army spokesman Lt. Col. Joseph Marier told Anadolu Agency. He said at least 120 people had been killed when government forces repulsed the attack. "On our side, we lost six soldiers and 11 were wounded," Marier said. According to the spokesman, fighting was still raging in Bentiu as of 1:00pm Friday. "No casualties have been reported yet, but details shall follow," he said. When asked to elaborate on the current situation in Bentiu, Marier said army headquarters had lost contact with the town. "The fighting is still continuing. We have lost contact with our source in Bentiu," he said. "This [rebel attack] is a continuous violation of the ceasefire agreement. The SPLA [Sudan People's Liberation Army, i.e., South Sudan's army] respects the ceasefire agreement and shall always [operate solely] in self-defense," he said.

South Sudan has been shaken by violence since last December, when President Salva Kiir accused Machar, his sacked vice president, of plotting to overthrow his regime.

Hundreds of thousands of South Sudanese have since been displaced in fighting between the two rivals, leading to an increasingly dire humanitarian situation for large swathes of the population.

In recent months, the two camps have held on-again, off-again peace talks in Addis Ababa under the auspices of the Intergovernmental Authority on Development (IGAD), an East African trade bloc based in Djibouti.

Representatives of the two sides are currently in the Ethiopian capital to discuss implementation of a June agreement to form a transitional government.